The ramifications of The Pirate Bay go way beyond the music industry. For one, DVD piracy has an even more serious impact on independent filmmakers who aren’t protected by the legal clout of the studio system, because they have fewer alternative streams of revenue such as merchandising or live shows (which may be why David Lynch now does nixers as a public speaker and meditation guru).

Then there’s publishing. Until now, downloadable texts, even pdfs of entire books, were of little threat to the physical incarnation because they were too unwieldy and hard on the eyes. But as e-reader designers strive to make books more viable in the digital realm, their products become more vulnerable to bootlegging (as it stands, audiobooks are every bit as steal-able as albums.)
But what if the exposure helps your cause? Best-selling author of new-agey fables Paulo Coelho has come out in support of The Pirate Bay, testifying that leakage of The Alchemist through the website has only helped its sales. But then, the publishing industry has co-existed with its own legitimate version of The Pirate Bay for decades, one that can still be found in almost any town: the public library.
The wider issue is that of 21st century human consumerist behaviour. Do any of us really need to acquire and hoard 10,000 tracks or 1,000 movies? Does increased choice equal decreased appreciation of art? Maybe there was something in the process whereby we digested one artefact at a time through a period of intense listening, concentrated viewing or immersive reading. What if the key is not necessarily how much you are entertained by or even like a piece of work, but how deeply you experience it? Many’s the movie I found hard going, but couldn’t get out of my head for days afterwards (pretty much anything by Cassavetes or Tarkovsky).
I know, I know, hardly a fashionable idea. But infinite consumer choice can result in a sort of fitful syndrome that tempts a soul to switch off Paris, Texas after the first 15 minutes ’cos there aren’t any car-crashes, or toss Moby Dick after 50 pages ’cos of all that stuff about, y’know, whaling. Some of the most enduring art is a hard sell at first. Consider how many now-canonical films first tanked at the box office: Apocalypse Now, Blade Runner, Raging Bull, Zombie Strippers…
Those of us who watched late night Channel 4 or Alex Cox’s Moviedrome series on BBC2 or rented from the arty international section of Xtravision (God bless the mark) back in the pre-internet days did so mostly because that was the only alternative to Top Gun or Beverley Hills Cop or any other unholy alliance of Jerry Bruckheimer and Kenny Loggins. I’d argue that such exposure instilled in us hicks and heathens a reasonably sophisticated reflex response, set of criteria and frame of reference. In other words, it was good for us. Get that cod liver oil into you.
This is not to dismiss snap-crackle-and-pop entertainment value, but, y’know, too much of that stuff will rot your teeth. “These days a man’s gotta have choices,” said Mickey Knox in Natural Born Killers, parodying the kind of dial-up deli mentality that results in a jaded, ADD-addled relationship with the world.
Maybe sometimes the thing you need the most is to not get what you want.